Kevin Anderson - Lethal Exposure

“Then why didn’t you tell me this morning, dammit?”

“Because I wasn’t sure. He was wearing a surgical mask, it was dark. I thought I was imagining things.”

Dumenco spoke weakly from his bed. “Not… imagining things.”

Craig marched toward Dumenco, holding out the list, unfolding the sheet of paper. “Dr. Dumenco, I need you to look at these names. Do you recognize them? The man who attacked you carried them.”

The dying scientist seemed to have trouble focusing on the names. Craig pushed the list closer, and Dumenco stared at the words. Then tears gushed out of his hemorrhaged eyes. He trembled on the bed, glancing at the names, then over at the framed snapshots Craig had taken from the dresser drawer in his apartment.

“One name, then a city written down. Who are they, Dr. Dumenco?” he said. Trish looked over his shoulder, wide-eyed.

“My… my family,” the scientist said. “My family’s new names… all of them.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “They have been in hiding. They were supposed to be-” He shook his head. “They were supposed to be safe, safe from people like him.”

He slumped into the bedsheets and continued weeping. “My family.”

Thursday, 5:01 p.m.

Fox RiverMedicalCenter

In the aftermath of the shooting in the hospital, the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility swarmed to the Fox River Medical Center, armed with interview questions and forms to be filled out.

Though he hated to have cameras shoved in front of his face, Craig had made the appropriate statements to the reporters, explaining about the ongoing investigation into the soon-to-be-fatal radiation exposure of Nobel Prize contender, Georg Dumenco. An as-yet-unidentified assailant had twice attempted to kill the physicist in the hospital before being killed himself. The assailant was now the prime suspect for having caused the original radiation accident, as well as the devastating substation explosion, and the shooting of Agent Ben Goldfarb.

With forced patience, Craig spoke to the reporters because he wanted to protect Jackson. He took the hard way out with the toughest questions, just answering “no comment,” knowing that the press would speculate like crazy-but even if he had wanted to answer in full, Craig still didn’t know how the pieces fit together, what the assassin had been after, why the man had carried the aliases of Dumenco’s family hidden by the State Department.

Craig went to see Goldfarb again, trying to escape from the insanity, but the curly-haired agent just lay motionless. Julene had fallen asleep in a chair at his bed-side, while the two little girls kept themselves quietly occupied with a game of Trouble they had found in the hospital’s game cabinet.

While Jackson met with representatives from the Office of Professional Responsibility, giving his detailed statement, Craig paced the halls. Should he go back to Fermilab? Did Paige have anything else for him, any new statement from Nels Piter?

He passed by a waiting-room lounge, pausing long enough to watch a few seconds of Headline News . The Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm had announced their selection for the Prize in Literature, an Eskimo whose poetry had described the plight of the vanishing harp seal. The newscaster speculated on when the few remaining Prizes would be announced; Craig hoped Dumenco lived long enough to learn of their decision.

After the second assassination attempt, Trish remained terribly shaken and refused to leave Dumenco’s side. Surrounded by guards and doctors, the physicist seemed distressed and claustrophobic. Craig wondered if the PR-Cubed people had any greater involvement, if Trish still knew more information she kept hidden from him.

Why was it everyone wanted him to solve this case, but no one would give him all the data he needed? None of it made any sense. Craig pressed his fingers against his temples, rubbing the skin there to make his headache crawl slowly away. He knew he was still missing a key piece of the puzzle.

And then his cell phone rang.

Craig fumbled with the tiny receiver as he flipped it open; one of the nurses glared at him, ready to scold him for using the cell phone inside the hospital, but he moved quickly toward the door to a smokers’ courtyard. “Hello?” There was static on the line.

“Special Agent Kreident? This is General Ursov speaking. How are you today, my friend?”

Craig stood at Dumenco’s bedside, livid with anger. “You’re not being honest with me!” he said, trying to keep his voice down from an outright shout. He shooed the doctors and orderlies out of the way, while the guards stood at the door.

Trish stepped toward Craig. “What are you doing?” He held up a finger and Trish pulled herself upright, flustered at his harshness.

The Ukrainian scientist squirmed in pain on the hospital bed, somewhat delirious. His crimson eyes took a long time to focus on Craig.

“I just learned of your black-program research for the Soviet military,” Craig said. “Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

General Ursov had been coy, giving few specific details but confirming that Dumenco had indeed been a key physicist developing directed-energy weapons for the Soviet military. But he and his family had defected to the West during the breakup of the USSR. While he himself had retained a relatively high profile, Dumenco’s family had never been seen again.

“Has someone tried to kill you because of your weapons research?” Craig demanded. “The classified work you left behind in the Soviet Union? Is that what they’re after? Is that why someone exposed you to radiation in the Fermilab accelerator?”

“Perhaps,” Dumenco croaked. “Probably not.” His eyes rolled, leaking fluid that might have been tears or just mucous from damaged membranes. “They didn’t want me to talk about the things I had discovered. I had sworn to keep that work secret. But after my accident, they were afraid, afraid I would talk on my deathbed.” He shook his head. “But I had promised not to reveal what I know, and I am a man of my word.”

“And you haven’t revealed anything. But I’m not asking for classified results, Professor. I’m asking for help.”

Dumenco was quiet for a long time. He looked to Craig, but could find no empathy.

Dumenco’s lip trembled. “When I came here I had to… leave my family. Your State Department changed their names to keep them safe. I thought if I remained silent about my research, then the secret police might leave me alone, might leave… them alone.”

Craig held up the folded sheet of paper found in the assassin’s pocket. “Then why do you think he had this list? To mail them Christmas cards? I don’t think so.”

Dumenco looked devastated at the revelation. “Even I didn’t know where they were located. I haven’t seen them in a year. Names changed, they moved to different places, an odd stepchild of your U.S. Marshal witness protection program.”

Craig stiffened as the appalling truth hit him. June Atwood hadn’t told him any of this. Dumenco had kept quiet all these years, and his family had been in hiding, with new lives set up by the Bureau itself!

Trish hurried around to check on Dumenco’s IV drip, monitoring his vital signs with the apparatus, but she just wanted to get closer to the old man, trying to offer comfort by her presence.

“So why did this man try to kill you? How did he get into Fermilab, and how do you think he triggered your radiation exposure? Was he a hired-gun from the former Soviet Union, someone leftover from the KGB?”

“My work at Fermilab was beginning… to reproduce some of my efforts in the Soviet Union. I should have known it would draw their attention.” Dumenco swallowed hard. “But this man could not have operated the Tevatron-it is much too technical for him. He couldn’t have caused the accident.”